Imagine taking in a movie on Tremont Street, then retiring to a night of relaxation in the basement Turkish bath and swimming pool

Long, long before the AMC Boston Common went up at the corner of Tremont and Avery streets, the site was the home of the Tremont Theatre, where an enterprising Swedish immigrant put in a swimming pool and a Turkish bath in the basement - open all night, at least for men.

Adolph Lundin, who emigrated here from Helsingborg, Sweden, opened his Turkish bath in the 1890s, at first with hours for both men and women - although only the men could lounge there all night. The theater itself was brand new at the time - it had opened only in 1889.

The Turkish bath did well enough that he eventually paid well above asking for a building that housed a closed gym at 42 St. Botolph St., which he renovated and turned into a Turkish bath for women.

In 1920, the Cambridge Sentinel declared Lundin's Turkish bath "a popular magnet for all who want to be clean in a thorough, healthful fashion" and noted that among its habitues were Cambridge Mayor Quinn, ex-Mayor Barry and "many other Cambridge notables."

All was not fun and baths for Lundin. On March 4, 1897, he was standing near the corner of Boylston and Tremont streets when he was thrown against a wall by an explosion caused when a horse-drawn trolley ignited gas from a gas main ruptured by workers working on the tunnel for the soon-to-arrive Tremont Street subway.

Six people - and at least one of the horses pulling the trolley - were killed. Lundin was taken to the hospital "severely cut and bruised" but was able to go home later in the day, the Globe reported.

Aftermath of the explosion (photo by N.L. Stebbins, source):

Lundin died, aged 64, while on a ship to New Orleans in 1922, according to a Globe account at the time. He left two brothers in Boston and a brother and three sisters in Sweden.

The Tremont Turkish Bath stayed open after his demise. In 1926, the Globe ran a help-wanted ad for a "Young Irish-American, married preferred" for "night work" there.

In 1929, police raided the place and seized 14 liquor bottles, the Globe reported.

And that was the last time the place made the pages of the Globe.

In 1932, the Tremont Theater was rebuilt to allow talkies, although it had earlier shown some silent films, most notably the racist "Birth of a Nation" - which sparked a large protest by Boston's black community.

In 1947, the theater was sold and renovated again, as the Astor Theater.

By the mid-1970s, with the rise of the expansionist Sack theater chain, the creation of the Combat Zone and the explosion of disco music, the Astor was shut and turned into an all-night "juice bar" disco - you could dance the night away with the small cans of juice it sold or bring in your own, stronger stuff. Disco faded and so did the club.

A series of fires between 1981 and 1983 burned the place to the ground, clearing the way for today's 19-plex.